A trip to HorseShoe Valley, Onterio, Canada...October 1998

We spent a week in HorseShoe Valley. It's about a 2 hour drive north of Toronto, 3 hours during Friday rush hour traffic, which is when we went. Though we stopped at the first information center when we got across the boarder and the lady there told us that the new express way didn't charge US citizens yet. Seems the express way takes a picture of your license then sends you a bill. Great idea because you don't have to stop and pay 15 cents every two miles. Even better because we had U.S. plates, we rented our car in Ohio, but that's another story all together. It shortened our trip considerably, but eventually we had to get onto the smaller roads and people trying to escape Toranto for the weekend did seem to be all around us.

Canada is just beautiful during the fall and with us living in California, which really doesn't get much in the fall colors scheme of things, it was quite a treat. Also the weather was crisp and cool with blue skies, bright sunlight and just the right feel for country drives and hot cocoa breaks.

Here are some of the pics we took during that week. We were lucky to run across an artist's studio tour. Several artists in the area opened their barns, studios, whatever. Some offered music. Some had goodies, like pumpkin bread or cookies. All had warm drinks like cider or hot cocoa AND, of course, art work. There was a great variety. The days were beautiful and the weather perfect for driving through the country side looking for the off the beaten path studios.

Here is a view of a lake on the land of one of the artist's studios we visited. It just looked perfect so we had to stop and stay a while.